It Happened One Heist

The Pendant

The sound of Maggie's bedroom door echoed down the hall. She chuckled; it sounded less like a person simply waking up from a decent night's sleep and more like a monster emerging from a century-long slumber.

She picked up her suitcase and wandered out in the hall, the carpet muffling the sound of her heels. She had her black knee-high boots on as she planned to leave soon and get breakfast in town. However she wanted to first thank her semi-simian host for allowing her to stay the night, considering she did try to steal from him. If not that, she also hoped that maybe this would be her last chance to nick that pendant and run.

She curiously wandered down the halls, the morning light making the castle's interior far more welcoming than before. The paintings of apes in costume were more vibrant in color and a lot less distorted. Her favorite was this cubist depiction of two capuchin monkeys engaged in a slap-fight, aptly titled "Sibling Rivalry".

Still, she didn't know where to find her host or the pendant. She snapped her finger and her ears twitched as she took in every detail of the space around her. She followed the direction of the echo and knew where a door had been left open.

She snapped again. The room beyond was a large one, and the wooden doors had been left askew, like they had been carelessly thrown open.

She peered around the doorframe to see that it was a library. The walls were aligned with shelves and numerous books, a rolling ladder on a track to help reach the ones upon the tallest shelves.

She scanned the room to find out why the doors had been clumsily left open. Slumped over a table among an array of open books was Monkey Fist, lightly snoring and looking like a college kid who pulled an all-nighter in the campus library.

Maggie gently set her suitcase down and silently chuckled, as for a moment she was brought back to that archeological dig she went on with him. She vividly remembered late one night when she was half-asleep she had paid a visit to Monty's tent to ask if she could bum some water from his canteen. When she moved the tent flap aside she found him still wide-awake and heavily engrossed in his reading by the light of a lantern, not even having changed into his nightclothes.

Maggie leaned against the doorframe as she smiled at that memory. Back then it was hard not to get wrapped up in his enthusiasm for ancient civilizations, simians, and often both. That night she visited his tent she wound up staying up with him for another hour just to listen in on his research findings, only to be interrupted when her bunkmate wanted to know what was keeping her and that water.

She looked up at Monty Fiske as he was now. It didn't look like she was going to get that Wufu pendant, but at least she would get to say goodbye to her old buddy, if he was still willing to call himself that.

She softly walked over to where he was dozing, not wanting to wake him up just yet. She leaned over his shoulder, curious about what it was that he pulled an all-nighter for. Lots of old books were left open and a few ancient scrolls unfurled, most of the texts written in East Asian characters that she couldn't read. A few of the books were printed in English, including the one that Monkey Fist was apparently using as a pillow.

She leaned her palm on the table to try to read some of it, but before she could make out a word Monkey Fist's hand suddenly clasped around her wrist like a hunter's snare.

He sprung to his feet in alarm, his chair loudly falling back to the floor.

"Whoa! Whoa! Easy!" Maggie cried. "I'm not stealing anything! See?" She held up her bare palms. "My hands are empty! You can check my pockets if you like!"

Monkey Fist panted as he quickly recalled the previous night. He let go of Maggie and as she rubbed at her wrist she got another look at those hairy hands of his. It was a wonder to her just how much people can change in the span of eighteen years. That this respectable scholar she once admired had become such a beastly curmudgeon.